A lot of teams are not meeting expectations after just 1 or 2 games into the world cup - France, England and Brazil in their own distinct ways. Does it mean that the expectations were misplaced in the first place? To an extent, that is true for every team for if you asked any fan before the world cup regardless of the team he was supporting, the optimism regarding his team was a key aspect you could identify immediately before any thing else.

So the disappointment will exist for fans of most countries by the time the world cup is over. There will be the happy fans from Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana but most fans are likely to feel sad rather than happy on their team’s performances as their team exits. For England, the gelling isn’t happening. There is also the feeling that the team and it’s stars are not really as good as the media makes them out to be. For France, a victory jinx seems more inexplicable. The team weren’t favourites before the world cup begun but who would have thought that they would be winless after two games.

Zidane is playing well and the team is loaded with talent. I was speaking with a friend and his explanation, radical as he termed it, was that the players play at different paces which hampers the team over all. For example, Henry is too fast for the rest of the team. Synchronisation is vital and it is true that France is missing that at some level. However, it is also true that they have been unlucky with goals not happening. I do hope that their luck turns because it would be a shame if they went out early.

Enough about England and France. I have been born and brought up in Calcutta and so I could have easily been any one of those guys from the picture in the previous post. I will focus on the team I support - Brazil. It is easy to criticise and I don’t like criticising but I have little option left here. Brazil has been poor in the world cup so far and it has left a lot of fans in despair. One game can be ignored. Not two. Australia adopted a complete defensive strategy versus Brazil. Brazil is, after all, Brazil. More significantly, Australia already had three points in the bag and so even a point against the defending world cup champions would have been reason enough for a lot of celebration for them.

Given the Australian thinking for the match, Brazil would have been happy with a 2-0 or even a 1-0 from the match normally. In the end, Brazil did manage 2-0 but a lot of talking issues popped up during the 90 minutes. Despite the strategy of defense from Australia, a lot of opportunities did come up for Brazil. Ronaldinho and Kaka were flawless and despite the heat and the resistance battle Australia were at, a lot of goals could have been scored in the first half.

However, none were. We saw a struggling Ronaldo who lost the ball almost every time he got it (and it was a lot of times as he was the man up front), a slow Adriano who was a shadow of the tough and pushing Adriano and a Roberto Carlos who kept kicking the football miles over the goal. On Ronaldo - there is some thing definitely wrong. Forget the fat jokes. There might be a medical problem. He did take tests for the same and you cannot afford to play a man not at his 100%, whoever he is. Brazil knows that better than most teams courtesy their 1998 experience. Ronaldo is not like the Ronaldo of the past. He isn’t spectacular but can still score goals if he is at 100%. A 100% Ronaldo can battle for a spot with Robinho. If Ronaldo is not at 100%, there should be no debate.

A lot of people will applaud Ronaldo for creating that chance for the first goal in the match for Adriano. It was a strategic move more than any thing from the coach who saw that Ronaldo was just not being able to score in the first half. If a striker has to pass the ball, he isn’t playing his role of scoring goals very well, is he? If you do need a person to create chances, there is Ronaldinho. If you need one more person, Robinho is much better at it.

The attack issues werent the biggest concern from the match. Despite Australia focussing on defense, they had some pretty easy chances. It is a pity from their point of view that most of the balls went straight into the hands of the keeper. If you ask an Australian fan, he will tell you that he was disappointed that Australia did not score a couple of goals at least. That is bad news for Brazil and such weak defense would be costly against a stronger team.

If you have watched Brazil in the past 2 years, you know that this team can play fast and attacking football. There is that much talent in it. So, players who are cannot match the pace do not have room in the side. The game changed when Robinho came in. There weren’t more chances suddenly. There was more optimum use of the chances which changed the face of the match. Even a Fred scored.

No one can hide in the sporting arena. Reputation means little and you are shown up very soon if you have lost a fraction of any thing which makes you the professional sports person. So, reputation should not be given more importance than it deserves for reputation will not win you a world cup. Bring in some from the many in the powerful Brazil bench for at least a match to see what changes can do.

Rest/drop Ronaldo, Adriano, Carlos. Play Robinho, Juninho, Fred/any one, and more. Bring in the faster legs before it is too late. People are already saying that it will be sad if Argentina doesn’t win the world cup. The Brazilian team is one of the most gifted ever and they do gel well as a team. So it will be sad if this team doesn’t win the world cup as well, especially from a Brazilian angle.

Bring on the changes!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.